Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas everyone! I have had a delicious cappuccino this morning and fresh from the tree clementines, and a very fishy dinner last night with pasta and wine.

So far we are mostly recovered from the jet lag and seven hour difference between here and home and spending time with family playing video games with my nephew and bouncing the baby niece on my knee. She is super adorable in her christmas outfit.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

What does one do with a stack of empty barrels that are sitting around attracting weeds? The only thing you can do, make something out of them! With the help of my dad, I spent more hours than I thought i would, and made a home for some heifers.

We cut the barrels in half (thankfully the seam ran along exactly where we wanted to cut) and then bolted them back together to form three panels two high. Then after putting it off for a couple of days I bolted them together to form a horseshoe shaped wall of barrels.

mostly finished, just missing the back part of the roof, and the seals for the cracks.

I intended to simply bolt a board across the top of the front to hold the sides in and to have something to anchor the roof to, but that failed when I tried to shift it slightly and the plastic cracked, and then the bolts pulled out. I ended up bolting some vertical stakes to the inside and then screwing some boards across the top to stabilize the whole thing. For the roof we used the back off of an old chopper wagon that they tore apart last year, and I still need to add a bit of plywood to the back part where the tin didn't quite reach. But for now it is buried under a bunch of snow, so it will have to wait until the need for it becomes desperate and/or thaws out enough on a day when I have the time to get to it again.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Long time no post! I have been super busy as of late, mostly with freezing my buns off at work. I have three half started posts from November to get to yet, and didn't actually get very far on NaNoWriMo, but I did get an Alphasmart to make typing easier/ less distracting.

We are in the middle of a blizzard here in Northeast Wisconsin, and I have the day off because I was supposed to go to my friend's house to have a bake-a-thon, but the roads suck, so here I am at home in the mood to paint things.

So here he is, a gnome resting under the moon.

It's done on an 8X10 canvas board in acrylics. The colors scanned a bit brighter than they are, but I don't feel the need to adjust them at this time. I have snow to shovel.